


Call it an Early Night

by ava_jamison



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Young Justice, Young Justice (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 02:46:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12644562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ava_jamison/pseuds/ava_jamison
Summary: It's hard living in Superman's shadow. Kon turns to Tim for help.Written forDean Draws





	Call it an Early Night

Making one last round, Tim swung through the cold, damp darkness of Gotham’s shipping district, shooting his grapple to arc from warehouse to warehouse. No sign of any action, not since he’d cleared out the block two weeks ago, but he liked to check, nasty as it was over by Admiral Docks. The harbor was turning over, and the whole place stank of brackish water, fetid and rank. 

His comlink buzzed. “Robin here.”

“Any activity?” 

“Nothing.”

“Call it an early night,” Batman said. “Get some rest.”

He’d made it to the corner of Adams and Court when a rush of air blew by him, and suddenly he was grabbed and lifted. Tim knew who it was immediately, the big square hands, the play of his muscles and the smell of his skin, but it was still jarring—disconcerting, to suddenly get grabbed like that out of the sky. 

“Kon,” he said, catching his breath when they set down on the roof of the old fish cannery. “You can’t just sneak up on a guy like that.” Heart racing a little too fast, he pushed away, made Kon give him his own space; let him stand on his own feet. 

“Sorry, Tim.” Kon shuffled a little, nervous smile slipping away. “Um… hey?”

Tim crossed his arms. “Hey.”

Kon took a step back and looked around. At the skyline and the harbor, dark waves shimmering where light caught their crests, at the street, the rooftop itself. Then finally at Tim. “So, uh… how’s patrol?”

“I’m about to call it for tonight,” Tim said, his tone a bit sharp. “What’s up, Kon?”

“Can’t I just come by and—I don’t know—say hi?”

“Except that you don’t do that, Kon. You used to show up when you needed help with your homework—”

“Hey, I was always glad to see you, Tim.” Kon looked honestly surprised. “You don’t think I was just…” he studied Tim carefully. “What? Using you or some shit like that, do you?” 

“Of course not,” Tim snapped. 

Kon splayed his hands helplessly. “I got grounded, dude.”

“Oh.” Tim really hadn’t thought of that one. Should have, obviously. But hadn’t. “What’d you do?”

“Dude, I…” Kon scrubbed his face, turning his cheeks a little pink. Or maybe it was embarrassment.

“Kind of trailed off there, Kon. What,” Tim said, “did you do?”

“It was pretty big trouble.”

Tim steeled himself. He wasn’t quite sure what ‘pretty big trouble’ for Kon would translate to, in actual reality. But he did have his guesses. Worst-case scenarios. He started to mentally tick down the list. “What kind of trouble, Kon?”

Kon stared at the tarpaper he was standing on for a minute before saying softly, “With Ma.”

Tim breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief. Ma trouble wasn’t real trouble, as far as he was concerned. “Good.”

“Shit no, Tim! It’s not good.”

“No, I mean—” He hadn’t really meant to say that part out loud. Must be getting careless—Tim made a mental note to fit in more R and R. Maybe next weekend… 

Meanwhile, Kon’s face was crushed.

Tim took a deep breath, trying again. “I mean, Kon, that she’ll forgive you. It could be worse.”

“Dude,” was all Kon said, in that way that meant Tim could stop yanking his chain any time now.

“Like it could be trouble that’s harder to fix, I mean. Like it could be some evil villain trouble, or some I-accidentally-set-the-barn-on-fire-trouble or school trouble or girl trouble—”

“Well, it kind of is.”

“Kind of is what?”

“That kind, Rob.” Kon said it like Tim was the slowest student in the class.

“What kind, Kon?” Tim felt his voice rising. 

“Dude!” Kon held up a hand.

“You are not being very forthcoming in your explanations, Kon!”

Kon pulled his WTF face. “Aren’t you supposed to be undercover? Dude, keep it down.”

Tim grabbed Kon’s arm and yanked. Kon didn’t budge an inch, just stood staring at him for a moment, before finally getting it and coming with Tim to the darkest corner of the rooftop. “Sit down, Kon.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Tim sat next to him, two pairs of legs swinging over the ledge. “Now. Tell me what’s going on.” 

“Like I said. Grounded.”

“What did you do—and wait, how come you’re even here?”

“Ma thinks you’re helping me with my homework.”

“You shouldn’t lie to her, Kon.”

“I know, dude. I do need some help! You know, if you didn't mind. I'm totally failing chem! But also,” he said, frowning, “I need some advice.”

“Really?” Tim felt a little warm, proud feeling blooming in his chest. “Okay, shoot.” 

“Well, it’s just…”

Tim tapped his foot against the side of the building. “Ready. To listen.”

“Okay, so first of all, I broke the computer.”

“Did you… what—forget your own strength?”

“No, dude. It was porn.”

Tim shifted on the ledge. “Kon, not sure I want to know what you were doing—”

Kon grimaced. “Not like that. Just gave the computer a virus.” 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Kon said, biting his lip. “And before that?” he said, words coming in a rush, “I copied a paper off the internet.”

“Kon!”

Kon’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. Ma’s pretty mad.” 

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“No duh, dude. I just didn’t… I couldn’t figure out how to say part of it, and the stuff was just there. So I took a few... parts.”

“I’d have helped you.”

“I know, Rob, but you were busy with Nightwing, and I hate always being the big dumbass who has to ask for help.”

Tim punched him in the arm. “You’re not a dumbass.”

Kon shrugged, not looking at Tim. “It gets worse.”

“Go ahead.”

“The principal calls me into his office, okay? And I get this long lecture—”

“Well, you did plagiarize, Kon—”

“No, you don’t get it. Wasn’t really about that so much.”

“No?”

“No.” Kon shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “You know,” he said, staring down at the gently shifting waves in the harbor, “when I lived in Hawaii? And something was bugging me?”

“Yeah?”

“I’d go down to the beach. Fly low over the ocean. Dodge the waves and feel the warm water splash up a little. When I got back, my lips would taste like salt and everything would be easier.”

“Where are you going with this, Kon?”

“Can’t do that in Kansas.”

“No, Kon. You can’t.”

Kon sighed, slowly exhaling. “No.”

“So,” Tim nodded. “Spit it out.”

“It was about Clark.”

“What?”

Kon’s hands were braced on the ledge and he leaned back to look at the clouded dark sky. “About how awesome Clark was—is, I guess.” He looked back at Tim. “And how much I suck.”

“Kon, you don’t—”

“I do, Tim.”

“Kon!” Tim said, squeezing his shoulder, “you’re crazy! Nobody measures up to Superman, Kon!”

Kon didn’t return Tim’s enthusiasm.

“And how are they even comparing—does the principal know Clark?”

“The principal’s old, dude,” Kon said. “Taught Clark. Chemistry.”

“Wow.” 

“Yeah.”

“Must have really made an impression, I guess.”

Kon swung his legs. “Yep.” Hand on his chin, he cracked his neck. “Clark, not me.”

“Kon!” Tim just wanted to shake him. “You haven’t given them a chance. You haven’t even given yourself a chance. What the hell?”

Kon shrugged. “I don’t know, dude.”

“That’s your answer? You got to straighten up, Kon.”

“Look, Rob—I know it.” Kon’s hands, back on the ledge, tightened, and little bits of stone crumpled under the force. 

“Careful.”

“Yeah.” Kon inhaled, then breathed out. “Look, I think I just started feeling sorry for myself, okay? It’s like… it’s like I’m this dumbass who screws everything up. Clark was perfect—perfect at home, perfect at school, perfect at everything. And I’m just some guy they grew in a lab who—”

“Stop talking like that.”

“I just wanted to turn in one paper that was really good, you know? Instead of another crummy C plus by me.”

“Kon, it doesn’t count if you cheat—”

“Dude, you think I don’t know that?” Kon growled out the words like they hurt him. “I fucked up, Rob.”

“So what now?”

“Now?” Kon dusted the gravel he’d ground from the ledge off of his palms. “Now I rewrite the thing, go to a million detentions and get a paper route so I can buy Ma and me a new computer.”

And there was that warmth again. Tim tried not to examine it. “Okay,” he said, smiling faintly. “That’s good, Kon. That’s real good.”

Kon shrugged. “Started throwing papers last week. Got to get up early, though.”

“Yeah.” Tim nodded and they both sat there in companionable silence for a minute. Tim broke it. “Hey, so what did you want advice on?”

Kon shrugged again. “Just wanted to talk to somebody. You, actually.”

“Me?” Tim fought the grin that was tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

Kon looked down at his hands, cracking his knuckles. “You’re my friend, Rob, and I knew you’d kind of know… ”

“Chemistry?” Tim prompted.

“No, dude,” Kon said, his blue eyes intent and earnest. “You’d like, know, you know?. A little bit about it.”

Tim tilted his head. “What?”

“I mean,” Kon said, his words coming fast. “You’re perfect, right?”

“Kon,” Tim said, his face warming with a blush he felt creep up his cheeks.

Kon waved a hand. “No, you are, Tim. But even you have to know a little about what it’s like, right?”

“Hmm?” Tim said, still enjoying the glow of Kon’s regard. 

“To have somebody awesome, who came before you.”

“Oh!” Tim said, grinning and finally getting it. “Dick.”

“Yeah,” Kon breathed in relief. “Yeah.”

“It’s different, Kon.”

“I know he’s your brother and Superman’s not my brother.”

“Uh huh.”

“But it’s kind of the same and you got through it and you’re my best friend, Rob.”

“Yeah, Kon.” Tim grinned at him some more, then caught himself and studied the Gotham skyline. “You want to go work on that paper?”

“Not really,” Kon said, smiling a real smile for the first time that night. “But if you do come with me, Ma’ll make snacks.”

Tim nodded, not able to quite wipe the grin off. “If you want to do a quick swoop past Hawaii, I’m game, Kon.”

“Yeah.” Kon punched him in the shoulder. “Real quick. I got my route at 4:30. _A.M._ , dude. And my make-up paper’s due Thursday.”

Tim rolled his eyes, standing, as Kon’s hand slipped around his back for take-off. “We better get going, then.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, you may like this story: [Tim and Kon, Stuck in a Closet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/174848)


End file.
